


it must be winter in my heart

by rheniumvolution



Category: Midnighter - Fandom
Genre: M/M, i literally read vol 1 on the plane today and then i got home and wrote this, which is totally self-indulgent and ridiculous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:26:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6444439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rheniumvolution/pseuds/rheniumvolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey,” says Dick, “I never promised to be a 5-star chef, and I didn’t even want to cook for you, so—”</p><p>“So,” says Midnighter. “We need to go to the grocery store.”</p><p>“It’s like 2 am,” says Dick, “and you’re dressed like… you.”</p><p>Midnighter considers this for a brief moment, “Then we go to a 7-11.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	it must be winter in my heart

One moment, Dick Grayson is looking out the window at an empty fire escape and a smog-filled sky, then he turns away to stub out his cigarette. A bad habit he should have kicked months ago. When he turns back, his fire escape is full of black leather and a shitty mask, and it’s the one he likes even less than Bruce.

“Go away,” he says.

“Aw, Dick,” says Midnighter. “Is that any way to treat a guest?”

“It is when he shows up uninvited outside my window,” says Dick. He squints at Midnighter. “Do you really have nothing better to do than bug me on a Saturday night?”

Midnighter ignores this, slipping through the window quickly, landing in Dick’s living room on the balls of his feet. Like a cat. Dick hates him a little more for looking so good while doing that. “What’s for dinner?” he asks, and Dick goes back to hating him at top levels.

“Why are you here?” asks Dick.

Midnighter shrugs, “No plans.” He looks around the room, sparsely furnished and easy to leave. Dick has no attachments to anything here. “And you’re always interesting.”

“Thanks,” says Dick, as deadpan as he can make it, which is pretty deadpan. “That means so much, coming from you.”

Midnighter turns to him, eyes glinting in the low light. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dick turns away from him, heads into the kitchen. It appears he’s making dinner for two now, instead of his original plan of stale bagels while watching reruns of America’s Next Top Model. “It means that you’re idea of interesting is something that’s hard for you to kill.”

Midnighter follows him into the shitty excuse for a kitchen, because of course he does. There’s a smile playing at the edges of his mouth, like always. “I’ve never tried to kill you,” he says. “I wouldn’t know.”

Dick ignores this, because they’ve fought before, they have, and even if Midnighter wasn’t trying to kill him, he was at least trying to do some damage.

There are a few minutes where there’s nothing but quiet noises and no talking in the kitchen as Midnighter looks through things that don’t belong to him, and Dick tries to figure out if he actually has any food in this place. He’s really just passing through, treating it more like a hotel room than an apartment, and he doesn’t even think he has those stale bagels that he promised himself.

Well, that kind of sucks.

Dick can feel when Midnighter stops searching through his silverware drawers that are mostly empty, and starts to just stare at him. “What are we eating?” he asks.

He’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, looking totally relaxed in this space that doesn’t belong to either of them. Dick doesn’t know if he feels irritated or jealous or both.

“Nothing, apparently,” he says. “I have… mustard. Old mustard.”

Midnighter doesn’t laugh, but the edges of his almost-smile tilt a little further, a flash of teeth when he exhales sharply. It’s not a laugh. Dick has some dignity he’d like to keep, thank you.

“Hey,” says Dick, “I never promised to be a 5-star chef, and I didn’t even want to cook for you, so—”

“So,” says Midnighter. “We need to go to the grocery store.”

“It’s like 2 am,” says Dick, “and you’re dressed like… _you_.”

Midnighter considers this for a brief moment, “Then we go to a 7-11.”

 

*****

 

Dick Grayson does not know how his life became what it currently seemed to be. Which is to say: he is standing in a shitty run-down 7-11 with Midnighter, whose clothes were stained in blood, and trying to decide what kind of Pop-Tarts to take back to his shitty run-down apartment and eat. With Midnighter. Who probably won’t change out of his clothes that are stained in blood.

He can only hope that Midnighter likes America’s Next Top Model.

“Hot Fudge Sundae or Brown Sugar Cinnamon?” asks Midnighter.

“Do you like America’s Next Top Model?” asks Dick.

“Yes,” says Midnighter, at the same time Dick says, “Hot Fudge Sundae.”

They make their way to the register with two boxes of Pop-Tarts, a liter bottle of Sprite, a six-pack of shit beer, and a chicken salad sandwich.

Dick throws Midnighter a look when he sets the sandwich down on top of one of the six-packs.

“What?” asks Midnighter. “I can’t just eat Pop-Tarts and beer. I really was hungry.”

“I hate you,” says Dick, “a little more every day of my life.”

“I love it when you talk sweet to me,” says Midnighter.

Dick holds back an exasperated groan, vaguely feels his ears getting a little pinker, and throws two twenties on the counter.

The clerk doesn’t even look at them twice, just scans their items, takes their money, and sends them on their merry way. Midnighter looks irrationally proud of this. “Told you 7-11 was the right place to go,” he says, a step behind Dick as they head out the door.

“Is this where you spend every Saturday night?”

Midnighter scoffs, “Only like, twice a month.”

It’s obviously sarcasm, and Dick knows this, but something about Midnighter makes him want to play along, keep the bit going. Something makes him want to get swept up in… something. He hasn’t decided yet what he wants from this weird relationship they’ve been cultivating, and he can’t tell what Midnighter wants from him.

But when Midnighter stares at him for too long, he feels warm and out of focus, so maybe that’s something he should ignore for a little while longer.

Anyway, he can’t play along, because the moment has passed, and they’re almost back to the apartment.

“So,” says Midnighter, as they’re climbing the stairs.

Dick sighs, “Every time you start a sentence like that, I know I’m going to hate whatever’s about to come out of your mouth.”

Midnighter laughs, sharp and bright in the early morning darkness. “I was just going to ask what season of Top Model we were going to watch.”

He unlocks the door (there’s no reason for a lock, really, but it came with the building, and he hasn’t been bored enough to get rid of it for something better yet), and shrugs. “I normally just watch reruns. Y’know, whatever’s on whenever it’s on. My schedule doesn’t exactly permit keeping up with anything regularly.”

Midnighter doesn’t respond, but Dick kind of thinks he gets it. They dump their prizes on the rickety table in the kitchen, and Dick immediately scoops up two packets of Pop-Tarts and a beer. Midnighter grabs his sandwich and a beer.

When they’re settled in the living room, Dick flips the television on. Midnighter is settled on one end of the couch, and he’s on the other, and he misses the beginning of their first episode because he’s too focused on the space between them. It’s barely more than a foot; if he stretched out, they’d be touching, but he doesn’t.

Midnighter makes offhand and sometimes off-color comments on the show, and halfway through the second episode, Dick is on his fourth beer. There’s almost a box and a half of Pop-Tarts left, and they haven’t even touched the soda.

“How’d you even know where I lived?” Dick asks. He’s more than a little tipsy.

“You didn’t think to ask that, like, five hours ago?”

Dick shrugs, mildly chastened. “I didn’t really care then. Now I’m curious.”

Midnighter’s socked feet are on his coffee table, in harsh juxtaposition to the fact that he’s still wearing the blood-stained uniform and, for whatever bizarre reason, the mask. He taps the side of his head, and it, unfortunately, takes Dick a moment to remember that Midnighter has a computer in his brain. Or something like that.

There’s surprisingly little he actually knows about Midnighter, and even what he does know doesn’t answer his numerous questions. If anything, it just seems to add more questions to the pile. Things he’d never ask, but he’s always going to wish he would.

Now, he just sort of stares. Midnighter probably knows he’s staring. That should feel more awkward than it does, but Drunk Dick doesn’t really care about the same things as Sober Dick.

“I’m actually a decent chef,” he says.

“Really?” asks Midnighter. He sounds amused. This is the most vulnerable Dick has ever been around him, but something about it feels comfortable. Nice. He kind of likes it.

“I just don’t have any food here.” His voice is solemn, or he thinks it is. The words kind of trip out of his mouth, though, so he’s probably slurring them. He takes another swig of beer. “If I did, I mean, I’m no Gordon Ramsay, but I make pretty good _janija_.”

“That’s the stew, right?” asks Midnighter.

Dick nods, turning his head towards the ceiling. There’s a weird stain in the corner. He traces it with his eyes a few times. “You should come over sometime,” he says, “for stew.”

“What if I didn’t want stew?” asks Midnighter. He sounds thoroughly amused, which makes Dick feel more than a little pleased. He likes when Midnighter pulls his head out of his ass, has a little fun, feels something like happiness.

“I can make other things,” promises Dick, very seriously.

“Fascinating,” says Midnighter. At some point, Top Model has been turned off, and now Midnighter is facing him, mask off.

“You look ridiculous,” says Dick. “Christ, go get some clothes from my room, or something, just so long as you aren’t wearing that right now.”

“Tell the truth, Dick,” Midnighter says as he stands, “you just want to see me in your clothes.”

“That’s probably true,” says Dick idly.

Midnighter stops and looks at him, eyes wondering, but shakes his head and doesn’t say anything else. By the time he comes back, in a loose pair of gray sweatpants and no shirt, Dick is fast asleep on the couch.

 

*****

 

He wakes up on his couch with a pounding headache and the world’s worst taste in his mouth. When he stumbles down the hallway to his room, there’s someone in his bed. Midnighter is in his bed. His head pounds harder.

There’s a while where he just pretends it isn’t happening in favor of brushing his teeth and taking a shower and going to the grocery store. When he comes back, Midnighter is using his shower. Dick eyes the closed bathroom door, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he starts making breakfast.

Midnighter comes out to coffee and bacon and eggs and French toast and bagels. Dick maybe cooks when he’s nervous. There’s a lot of breakfast.

“Huh,” says Midnighter, “you can cook.”

“Did I say anything stupid last night?” he asks, wincing as he says it.

Midnighter grins at him, “Every word out of your mouth is stupid.”

Dick raises an eyebrow. “Somebody doesn’t want any breakfast.”

“I apologize for every rude thing I’ve ever said about you, or to you, or whatever,” says Midnighter.

They eat breakfast. Halfway through, Midnighter looks up and there’s a bit of strawberry jam on the corner of his mouth, and he sighs, “This is so good. I could kiss you.”

Dick mutters, “Promises, promises,” and takes another sip of his coffee, daring Midnighter to say anything. If it comes to it, he can pass it off as a joke. Probably. He’s still pretty hungover.

Midnighter smiles, positively evil, and Dick readies himself for the worst. “Last night,” says Midnighter, “you said you wanted to see me in your clothes.”

“I want to see you dead,” says Dick without hesitating.

“I may lapse into a food coma after this meal,” says Midnighter. They move on. Dick doesn’t know why that feels like a failed end to that conversation.

Breakfast takes the better part of two hours, and at the end of it, Dick feels more relaxed than he has in a while. They do dishes in the tiny sink, side by side, and it makes Dick feel like he’s a little bit undone.

Eventually, Midnighter has to go. Dick is pretty much used to Midnighter ducking out and fucking off at the weirdest moments, without so much as a goodbye, but this time he takes a long moment and just stares at Dick.

“You got to go?” Dick asks.

“Yeah,” says Midnighter. He doesn’t sound happy about this. “Just—” He takes a quick half-step, hands on either side of Dick’s face, and kisses him. Dick feels his stomach drop to his toes, but not at all in a bad way. In a good way. In a very good way. After a moment, a few more kisses, Midnighter’s hands warm and solid on Dick’s neck, holding him steady, they pull away.

Midnighter clears his throat, takes a step back, and moves forward again. “Been meaning to do that for a while.”

Dick nods, “Come by tonight, I’ll make _janija_.”

Midnighter grins, kisses him again, a quick peck on the corner of his mouth. “You remember.” He sounds amazed by this simple fact.

“I was drunk,” says Dick, “I didn’t get amnesia.”

There’s a delighted laugh from Midnighter as he launches himself out the window and down the fire escape.

Dick sticks his head out the window after him and yells, “Don’t think this means I don’t hate you! I still really, really hate you!”

Midnighter’s laugh echoes around the alleyway for a suspended moment, and Dick thinks that, for once, he doesn’t hate this apartment all that much.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @ocdhawkeye on tumblr. come say hey!


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